ERS European COPD Audit & British Thoracic Society Joint Conference

Using the ERS COPD Audit data, this seminar will raise awareness that care across Europe is not always consistent. A key element of the day is to turn this awareness into a desire to improve care quality using the care bundle concept as a change tool. We plan to demonstrate the benefits of using care bundles to improve care in all countries, recognising that each country has different local situations and health care systems. The seminar will aim to:

Form an Agreement that we need to improve care by reducing variability;

Demonstrate that clinicians have a lead role in this;

Show that the care bundle is an attractive tool to effect change;

Demonstrate to participants that we have an opportunity to design care bundles for COPD admission and discharge that provide flexibility to account for national requirements, and can do so during this seminar.

“Following on in the tradition set for the ERS Presidency, I will address the aspect of identifying and reducing risk factors linking communicable and non-communicable respiratory diseases. These aspects will be the basis of the 3rd Respiratory Summit on "Lung Health in Europe: changing the natural history of respiratory diseases" that will be held in Dublin in June 2013.”Francesco Blasi, in his first message as ERS President

The ERS 2013 Presidential Summit is in association with the Irish Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

The event is full. No new participants will be invited.

DAY 1 – FRIDAY 7 JUNE 2013

12:00–13:00 Registration & Lunch

13:00-13:15 Opening and welcome

13:15–13:30 Key note address

13:30–14:45 Policies for lung health and research: can they make a difference?

14:45–15:45 Lung Health: understanding risk factors

15:45–16:15 Coffee break

16:15–18:30 Gaps and needs: defining patient-focused research

Followed by a panel discussion to identify concrete areas/topics where collaboration at EU-level is necessary.

DAY 2 – SATURDAY 8 JUNE 2013

08:00–09:30 Needs and perceptions: understanding the patient

09:30–10:15 Towards a new perspective on industry partnerships?

10:15–10:45 Coffee break

10:45-11:00 Instructions for break-out sessions

11:00–12:00 Break-out sessions on top priorities for collaborative research

Outcomes should define top priorities for international/European research that will deliver innovations, meet patient needs, and address urgent research gaps: through the formulation of potential research topics for Horizon 2020.

“Breaking down barriers to lung health: a better environment for better medicines”

Rome, Italy - 2-3 July 2014

The European Respiratory Society is hosting its 2014 Annual Presidential Summit in Rome, Italy on 2nd and 3rd of July. Started in 2010, this annual event aims to address and discuss pressing issues at the interface of science and policy. The objectives of the 2014 Summit are to:

examine the various barriers to new medical products, from research to regulatory issues;

and explore new ways to create a better environment for medicine development.

Under the Presidency of Professor Peter Barnes, the Summit this year moves to Rome on 2-3 July 2014, discussing how to create a better environment for better medicines.

ERS Presidential Summits are a forum for discussion in the interface between science and policy. Summits aim to provide a broad background from which to tackle respiratory disease – from the European Respiratory Roadmap, to a focus on health inequalities, and a discussion on research priorities.

This year’s event hosted speakers from a range of fields from policymakers to researchers and patients, coming together to discuss key issues in medicine development.

The European Respiratory Society is hosting its 2015 Annual Presidential Summit in Brussels, Belgium on 16th and 17th June. Since 2010, this annual event aims to address and discuss pressing issues at the interface of science and policy. This event will discuss pressing issues at the interface of patients, science and policy.

This year, the aim is to examine the various issues that surround personalised respiratory care in Europe, and to explore how to build a better environment for patient care, taking into account new technologies and their impact on patients, health systems and healthcare professionals.

Despite remarkable progresses in the definition of cellular, biochemical and molecular biology pathways in the pathogenesis of Severe Asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder (COPD) and Interstitial Lung Disorders (ILDs), there is still a substantial unmet need for new drugs able to control and/or change the natural history of these diseases. This Seminar intended to underline the key role of a side-to-side collaboration between clinicians, scientists, bioinformaticians and statisticians in the comprehension of pathological processes underlying different respiratory disorders. It provided a framework to improve the ability to identify potential pharmacological targets for the development of innovative drugs.

The Research Seminar's aims were to :

Present the clinical state-of-the art and unmet needs in asthma, COPD and ILD;

Present current translational models of asthma, COPD and ILD;

Discuss how disease subphenotypes, symptom assessment and exacerbations can be modeled;

Present approaches for co-ordinating various data types to obtain clearer vision of drivers of disease phenotypes;

Discuss how these models can be improved to aid translation into the clinic.

Research Seminar's Organisers:

This seminar is to enhance efforts to improve the diagnostic and therapeutic strategies in IPF. Although the mortality rate of IPF is worse than for the majority of cancers, the recognition of IPF as a potentially fatal disease is not widespread, while the need for sustaining cancer research is accepted at any level of public opinion. Consistent with the cancer-like biology in IPF, the survival of IPF patients is poor, with a 5-year survival rate below 30%. The concept of IPF as a cancer-like disease may be helpful in identifying new pathogenic mechanisms that can be borrowed from cancer biology, potentially leading to different and more effective therapeutic approaches. This seminar will give the participant an understanding of recent clinical and scientific concepts in lung fibrogenesis and oncogenesis.

Aims of the Research Seminar:

The aim of this seminar is to offer general discussion on emerging clinical and scientific concept of the association of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis and Lung Cancer. Participants will gain knowledge from recent data to improve the routine investigation and management of their patients. Attendees will be able to develop their own research interests in clinical science and they will benefit from a working knowledge of the range of candidate pathogenetic pathways in both fibrogenesis and oncogenesis.

Registration:

Registration for this event is closed. Those who applied will be notified soon whether they are selected or not.

Research Seminar Organisers

Prof. Martin Kolb (Hamilton, Canada)

Animal models, organ and cell cultures are critical to understand mechanisms and pathogenesis of pulmonary health and disease, and are indispensable in drug development. However, the pathogenetic and clinical relevance of the models is often unclear. Further, the use of animals in medical research became increasingly controversial from an ethical perspective.It was expected that better understanding of the available models, especially their benefits and their limitations, will facilitate better use of research resources and reduce the numbers of animals in pulmonary research, thereby enhancing the ethical standards of experimental pulmonary research

One of the main objectives of this seminar was to gather respiratory scientists and clinicians from different subspecialties to foster exchange and increase their knowledge about lung disease models. And with more than 50 delegates from different specialties who attended this Seminar and took part in the discussion, this aim was fully achieved.

This Seminar was kindly supported by:

The Conference is granted 10 European CME credits by the European Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (EACCME) and European Board for Accreditation in Pneumology (EBAP).

Dysfunctional protein quality control is emerging as a key pathomechanism for chronic lung diseases. The range of lung disorders in which aberrant protein homeostasis has been implicated covers both common and orphan diseases that occur due to environmental, genetic, or idiopathic causes. The list includes most chronic lung diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) due to cigarette smoking or alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, cystic fibrosis, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), pulmonary arterial hypertension, and some allergic airways diseases.

In addition to genetically induced protein quality diseases, the lung is particularly challenged with environmental exposures to various noxious particles and gases.

It is evident that dysfunctional protein quality control is an emerging key concept for the pathogenesis of chronic lung diseases. Importantly, there is a close interplay of the ER-stress, proteasome, and autophagy pathways as interrelated components of the adaptive protein quality control of the cell. While there is an increasing number of researchers who are studying single aspects of the protein quality control machinery in chronic lung diseases, the interplay and interdependency of these systems has been mostly disregarded and is hampered by the increasing specialism of research. Understanding in greater detail the complex molecular basis of correct protein expression will identify new therapeutic targets and result in the development of new drugs to treat pulmonary diseases that occur due to inherent dysfunction of protein quality control.

On May 04-05, 2013, more than 40 people atetnded the ERS Research Seminar "Sensational developments in the airways: The role of afferent hyper et hypo function in respiratory disease" in the beautiful city of Dublin, Ireland.

Sensation from the airways is responsible for the majority of symptoms experienced by patients. The first aim that achieved this symposium was to bring together leading research teams in this burgeoning field. Also, the enhanced international collaboration generated by the seminar enabled to push developments further forward by providing a forum for exchange of ideas and underpinning the collaborative efforts required to improve the understanding of symptoms.

Additionally, the format of this meeting encouraged discussion amongst Faculty and audience, especially by the breakout sessions which gave the opportunity to junior scientists to participate actively in the event.

Research Seminar's Organisers:

The main aim of this seminar is to promote the exchange of knowledge and the interaction between basic scientists and clinicians as well as between the different research groups that are currently working on targeted therapy of lung cancer. The participants - experts of different countries and different fields - will evaluate advance in lung-cancer targeted therapy so far, discuss controversial issues and define the topics of future research projects aimed to improve the efficacy of targeted drugs as well as their availability to larger subgroups of lung cancer patients.

Registration

Participation in ERS Research Seminars is upon selection. Should you wish to attend, please complete the form available here.